Moving Picture News (Jan-Jun 1912)

THE MOVING PICTURE NEWS 41 make him cold even toward his own wife and only son. He has a positive aversion for the poor, and not only refuses aid to worthy people but brutally repulses their appeals. A Salvation Army lassie is none too gently shown the door. A starving man is actually thrown aside with violence and a woman in tatters, with an infant in her arms, is avoided as though she were pollution. After spending the evening at • the opera, Mr. Colville makes himself comfortable in a luxurious rocker, facing the fireplace, and then proceeds to enjoy a perfecto. Gradually he falls asleep and dreams: At his office everything goes wrong, and the vagaries of the stock market completely wipe away his fortune. By rapid stages he descends to the level of a beggar. In a dilapidated attic where he lives, his only child is ill unto death, and his wife almost mad with hunger and grief. The doctor calls and does his utmost to save the boy's life. The Salvation Army lass also comes, bringing with her a basketful of foodstuff. This alleviates the wants of the suffering trio. He grovels before the doctor and the girl, offering them his heartfelt gratitude and his everlasting thanks. Then he suddenh' awakes. For the moment he cannot realize that he has been dreaming, and the father instinct makes him rush into his child's bedroom. Frantically he takes up the boy and makes sure he is well. When fully ' awake, Colville firmly decides to change his mode of living and devotes his time and money to the welfare of mankind. THE FIGHTING CHANCE Nestor Belease, March 13 Trego B'ill and Pete, two outlaws, are partners. While Bill is dreaming of going to a new country to commence all over again and live on the square, Pete enters and asks Bill for money, as Pete has spent all of his money for drinks and in gambling. Pete is angry and takes out a reward placard, reading "$500 reward for information leading to the capture of Trego Bill — John Kellv, Sheriff." Pete decides to pose as a stranger and betray his partner to gain the reward. He goes to the sheriff's house. The sheriff and his men, headed by Pete, start off for Bill's shack. Bill, in the meantime, has packed up, and leaving a note for Pete, starts away. On the trail he sees the sheriff and posse with Pete and becomes suspicious. He hides until they Have passed, then rides back to see what they are after. Dismounting some distance from the shack. Bill creeps up and overhears enough of their conversation to convince him that Pete has betrayed him. He hurries to where the sheriff's horses are tied. Selecting Pete's, he drives him off, leaving Pete to catch his horse. As he comes up to his horse. Bill appears and accuses Pete. A violent quarrel arises. Pete shoots Bill and runs. EiU stops to bind up his wound, then follows. Pete runs on and on until he comes to a shack. Seeing a ladder leading to the attic, and fearing Bill's appearance at any moment, he climbs up and crawls into the window. Presently -e hears voices below, and looking through a hole in the trap door he sees a man and wife putting awav a couple of bags of gold. They soon go out. Pete drops into the room and secures the gold just as the woman, who was only bidding her husband goodby in the path, returns. She springs at Pete and they struggle; Pete finally knocks her down and picking up the gold to run out is met by Bill. The wife runs out calling after her husband, and overtaking him as the men struggle. The man returns just in time to prevent Pete from killing Bill with his upraised knife. As the husband covers Pete with his revolver. Bill hears the sheriff and his men approaching with the wife, whom they had met on the road. He runs out, leaving Pete to be placed under arrest. THE UNKNO'WN MODEL Nestor Helease, March 16 Mrs. Brown's birthday is approaching. Hubby, of course, wants to do the right thing and to do it well. What shall he g-ve her.He finally decides on giving her a surprise, that is, surprise her with a new dress patterned after the latest Parisian style, a style she has much admired. ' A fashionable dressmaker is taken into his confidence, but before he can go ahead with his plan he must manage to get his wife's e.xact measurements, and furthermore advertise for a model that would fill the bill. Brown steals his wife's "measure" most successfully and then proceeds to get a model. His office is stormed by a bevy of pretty girls, all eager to do the model stunt. Mrs. Brown happens to drop in, and in a spirit of fun poses as a model. The dressmaker promptly engages her, as the lady, more than any other, answers every requirement. Promising to report for duty on the morrow, Mrs. Brown departs, but not until the dressmaker, womanlike, has acquainted her with Mr. Brown's intended surprise to his better half. In due time the dress is finished, and Mr. Brown is informed to call at the dressmaker's at 2 p.m. to see the lovely creation on the model. At the appointed hour Mrs. Brown, fully garbed in the new garment, awaits her husband's appearance. Business, however, detains him, and the Mrs. slips out unnoticed by the dressmaker, intending to surprise Mr. Borwn at his office. Brown manages to get through with his business deal and makes a Marathon dash to the dressmaker's. Here he finds that both model and dress have vanished. The police are quickly called into the case, and they soon catch Mrs. Brown with the goods on. At headquarters. Brown realizes that the surprise, though on his wife, is "on" him. A TRAGIC EXPEiRIMENT Reliance Release. March 27 Hager, an old chemist, has been for years experimenting upon a certain combination of chemicals that he expects to make his fortune with. His older daughter, Jane, disbelieves in any such Gertrude, the younger daughter is enthusiastic that her father w;ll succeed. Gertrude is brought home one afternoon by a rich young promoter. Findlay. after she had sprained her ankle. Jane takes an instant dislike to Findlay, but Gertrude quickly loses her heart to him. He learns of Hager's experiment and becomes greatly interested, much to Jane's dislike. Hager promises to allow Findlay to finance the experiment, and succeeding before he expected he has Jane phone to him to come to the laboratory at once. Findlay comes and the papers are drawn up. He takes a phial of the precious fluid with him and the other phial is placed on a safe. He is in such a hurry when he departs that Jane's further suspicions are aroused, as her father will not tell her what happened between them. Hastening to get to the city, Findlay breaks the phial and leaves his packing to rush back to the laboratory to get the other phial. Jane sees him rush through into the laboratory, and again becomes suspicious but is called out of the room for the moment. In the laboratory Findlay finds Hager asleep and gets the other phial without disturbing him, leaving a note to the effect that he is leaving town at once. etc. Hager awakes, reads the note and tears it in half, using one half to place beneath some chemicals. Going to the sink he slips and falls, pulling down the draperies, some statuary and knocking over the chair. Jane comes back into the parlor in time to see Findlay rush out. Later, when she goes to see her father, she finds him on the floor to all appearances dead. Ger trude is called and Jane tells her that she consummation. but believes that Findlay killed her father. She phones the police and a doctor, then rushes off to catch Findlay before he can leave town. She finds him and accuses him. but as he does not understand she seizes h.s revolver and is about to shoot him when the phone rings, telling her the police are coming. They apprehend Findlay and take him back to the Hager home. In the mean; time the doctor has been able to bring Hager back to consciousness and he secures the other half of the paper and explains how it all happened, and Findlay and Gertrude are offered the old chemist's blessings. THE FUR SMUGGLER Reliance Release, March 30 Ruth Maynard lives happily with her father up in the snowbound woods near the Canadian border. Her father and Steve Phillips are fur smugglers and have always managed to evade the watchful eyes of the customs officers. Walter Leggett, a young customs officer, vows to discover the smugglers and through his sweetheart, the school teacher in Ma\-nard's vicinity, decides to gel on the trail of Maynard. He plans a ruse whereby he will be taken into Maynard's cab.n supposedly very ill. The ruse works far better than he expected, for he manages to win the love of Ruth during his supposedly convalescent period. Steve resents Leggett's intrusion and suspects him. He gives Ruth his revolver for protection and she has no occasion to use it until Leggett leaves, making an appointment to meet her down by the river. Steve sees Leggett with the school teacher and later meets Ruth patienth waiting at the tryst. She won't believe Steve at first, then Leggett not coming she runs home where she discovers Leggett searching and finding the hidden furs. Securing the gun she waits for him. He discovers her purpose and wrenches the gun from her, then runs down the trail. The school teacher coming along, sees the whole affair; Loggert stumbles, and, in falling, fhoots himself. \\'hen Steve is taxed with the killing through the fact that it was his gun that was used, he realizes that Ruth alone must be the responsible one and so shoulders the blame himself. Ruth and the teacher arrive in time to clear Steve and later she slips from her father's comforting arms to seek those of Steve and is forgiven. THE MAN FROM THE "WXST Imp Release. March 18 When a \\'esterner comes East, he is at once "placed" in the minds of the alleged cold-'nearted. dwellers on . the shores of the Atlantic. It is traditional and almost proverbial, but it is not true, that the inhabitants of the Eastern States are deficient m warmth of heart; they are opposed in mind and feeling to the people who live toward the Pacific Ocean side of the country. When Cousin Steve, from the West, finds his way to the East, therefore, he verified the partial truth of this tradition. He stayed with his relatives and mistook their innocent attentions for designs upon his peace of mind. He did not understand the Eastern veneer of civilization. He got into trouble with the butler; he saw a cabman abusing a horse and unwisely interfered; he rescued a girl in distress, and generally did a lot of things the average Easterner regards as unnecessary. Steve floundered badly in fact. Still his heart was in the right place. There was a family conspiracy to get him to marry his cousin, who loved another. Steve, too, had conceived other ideas. The cook of the family was a very comfortable and good-natured girl, with whom Steve, in h-s blunt, homely way, had struck up a flirtation and then a friendship.